


Never In a Million Years

by theshadowswhisper



Category: South Park
Genre: Garic, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 05:48:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3197705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshadowswhisper/pseuds/theshadowswhisper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gary Harrison: reasonable, straightforward, God-loving Mormon extraordinaire.  Eric Cartman is no match for South Park's most reasonable citizen.  Right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kankri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kankri/gifts).



> This was written as a Secret Santa gift for Max. I will expand it, probably. It's pretty closely based on the story "Hooked" by demondreaming from fanfiction.net. I just wanted to use the same dynamic to play with Gary and Eric, really. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

_Prologue_

“Heavenly father, please forgive me.”

You have to ask.  You have much to atone for these days.  In perspective, you’ve only ever atoned for rather innocuous things, until now. Unfortunately, your perspective comes from experience.  And it is the kind of experience you cannot bear to tell the bishop.  First, because you are ashamed.  Second because you know you can’t promise to stop.  You can’t even promise to try.

So you beg on your knees, pray to God Himself, that He will forgive you.  You clench your folded hands, bring them over your eyes  to hide your shame.  You only have the face to come here at all because God has already seen all there is to see.  You don’t know if it will help to tell Him you are sorry.  (You are, after all, it’s just that you are mostly sorry for yourself).  But it’s mostly the same thing, isn’t it?  You wish you didn’t do the things you have done and will do, you are sorry, you feel sick over it, and though you can’t forgive your own weakness, maybe God can.  You hope He can.  You already feel so alone.  You really don’t want God to abandon you now.

You murmur some more prayers, feeling increasingly futile in your efforts.  This is doing no good.  It merely feels like you are torturing yourself, and resolving nothing. This makes you question your faith, because you don’t know if even tangible proof of God’s forgiveness would make you feel better at this point.  There is only one thing that would make you feel better, and you know the Heavenly Father and the Devil himself are powerless to give it to you.  It’s the curse of free will: everyone has it.

Even Eric Cartman.

Especially Eric Cartman.

You’d rather not go to Hell over Eric, but you’re pretty sure that is where you are going.  And at the thought, there is a familiar airlessness in your lungs, and your body feels restricted, and it is difficult to move.  You cannot escape.  You are trapped here, frozen, as God watches him slowly but surely destroy you.  He watches with shocking apathy as Eric Cartman crushes  you to death.  Sitting here in the church that used to be a safe place, a good place, you know that Eric has you surrounded from all sides, and that includes the ceiling.  You can’t see Heaven anymore.  

God can’t hear the pleas of this sinner, because you’re trapped in Eric Cartman’s game, and the walls are closing in, soundproofed. 

* * *

 

You should’ve known better.  It all just seemed so innocuous.  The only person who’d suspected anything was Kyle Broflovski.  And frankly, Kyle was always suspicious of Eric, so it was somewhat hard to take him seriously.  Kyle may as well have been Chicken Little, shrilling on about the end of the world for all the mind anyone paid him.

Even so, it’s hard not to be mad at yourself.  It is so obvious in retrospect.

Everything just seemed so...irrelevant to you before. That must’ve been how you fell for it.  It didn’t have anything to do with you.  You couldn’t imagine being pulled from the sidelines, as you so rarely are.  It’s just...you’re generally content to watch the goings-on around you and not actively participate, but merely observe.  

So when Eric Cartman started wearing a skirt on the first day of  school sophomore year, you ignored it.  Really, you didn’t even think much of it.  You’d always had your suspicions about Eric and his predilections.  It wasn’t even a surprise.  The only change worthy of note was Wendy’s newfound presence at the lunch table, perpetually at Eric’s elbow like a watchful protector.  If anyone said anything ugly about Eric’s wardrobe choices, they could expect a fistful of Wendy’s rebuttal.  And since you liked Wendy well enough, the change was pleasant.  It was nothing to worry yourself over, certainly.

You thought it was kind of nice, truth be told.  Eric seemed happier, and no one fussed much over it after the first few scuffles with Wendy.  Things were mostly normal (as normal as it ever gets for South Park, anyway).  Kyle didn’t even start with his suspicions then.  

It was really the change in Eric’s body that seemed to worry him.  A few months after you saw him in that very first yellow-polka-dotted skirt, Eric began to change in other ways.  Because while Eric would always be a large person, the occasional skirt or dress and fluxing pronouns were not the only significant alterations to his appearance and presentation that he sported.   

You were impressed this time.  After all, Eric Cartman had to have put in a lot of work to turn his legendary lumps into genuinely note-worthy muscular bulk.  He hadn’t slimmed down, much.  But Eric’s big-boned-body was no longer a viable source of mockery.  Not with shoulders like those.  The guy was built like a tank, and now...well. Now he had the guns.

This seemed to disturb Kyle most of all.  He was very certain something was up. But when Kyle asked outright (more like squinted and indignantly demanded where “the other half of Cartman” had gone) about his transformation, Eric just shrugged and said, “What? You jelly?”  

It didn’t raise any warning flags for you.  You were just glad Eric had channeled himself in something productive, for once.  This seemed to be the popular opinion on the subject, anyway. Even Stan seemed to agree.

“Maybe he just figured out that people respond better to  attractive people than ugly ones,” Stan shrugged when Kyle tried to get his opinion on it.  “You know how he is, dude.  Err. She.  Whatever.  This is totally to...their?   Their benefit.  Eric always does shit they thinks will profit him.  Oh goddamnit, them.”

Eric himself resolved the question once and for all one day at lunch, apparently tired of Kyle’s skeptical glare and not-so-subtle implications that he was up to something.  

“All right, you filthy Jew rat!  You want answers?  Christ, fine!” He drew up to his rather impressive height (a massive 6’1, as compared to your rather modest 5’6) and snarled at Kyle, matching him calorie for calorie in the heat of his anger.  “God, you’re a stupid asshole!  Performing the right fucking gender for my identity makes me feel less dysphoric!  So I have the goddamn energy to exercise and stuff!  Are you just an insensitive bastard, or are you really  just a stupid, ignorant kike, Kyle?  I don’t need this from you!  I haven’t done shit to you for months.  I don’t deserve this fucking interrogation.  Get the fuck off my dick, you piece-of-shit-donkey-boner!”

That had shut Kyle up right quickly.  Wendy patted Eric’s arm comfortingly as he sat down and sent Kyle a dirty look.  Kyle sunk back into his seat, looking somewhat stunned.

It had surprised you, too, truth be told.  But it seemed Eric was indeed capable of careful thought when something was important enough to him.  

“I’m glad you’re feeling better, Eric,” you’d contributed, serenely, from your spot across the table.  And maybe that’s when it had started.  

He smiled at you, really smiled at you. And Eric Cartman was plain--plain, rounded features, absolutely un-noteworthy in appearance in every way.  But by God, when he smiled at you like that, there was something beautiful about it, and so you were too dumbstruck to even react when he leaned down and kissed your cheek.  How had you never noticed before?   _How had you never noticed before?_

* * *

 It’s just a kiss.  It doesn’t even last very long.  Just a moment or two, and then it’s done, and you stand there thunderstruck.  You’d been doing nothing really interesting, just examining the room and trying to decide where to set up the photo shoot things.  Then, Eric grabbed your chin, turned your face towards him, and leaned in.  All at once, he’d been too close.  You’d opened your mouth to ask him exactly what he was doing, and then he kissed you.

Eric Cartman kissed you--really kissed you.

You stare at Eric with wide eyes now and the thought echoes around in your head like a shout in a cave.  A kiss is only a small thing.  For all the romanticising the media and society likes to do, a kiss can’t change the world.  It can’t even change a person.  It’s just a second in time, a moment of contact, and it doesn’t mean the universe stops.  

It just feels like it does.  This to the point: you know it actually changes nothing….but it feels like it changes everything.

Eric stands innocently beside you as if he’s done nothing at all.  He has perfected the art of playing the dumb-and-oblivious card; he had to, because otherwise he wouldn’t get away with half the shit he actually does.  Even you almost fall for it.  He kissed you not ten seconds ago, and you wonder if you only imagined it.  While you sit there reeling, Eric is unphased.  It seems impossible that he could be so unmoved when for you, things will never be the same and you know this, deep in your gut.

The most plausible explanation does seem to be hallucination.  

“Why did you do that?” you demand, if only for peace of mind.  Eric has the impertinence to shrug, though you note that he looks smug.

“Heh. Do what, bro?”  

Then he goes back to hanging up streamers around the gym for the fall dance.  You volunteered to be on the decorating committee, and he only helped because Bebe banned him from doing so.  It is like Eric to do things like that, just to spite people.  You wonder if that is also why he kissed you.

You send him a very firm look, bidding (fruitlessly) that he be serious for a moment.  It goes over about as well as you can expect from Eric.

“I won’t do it again if you don’t want me to.” Is all he says, and it’s not an explanation, but from his tone--slightly teasing, like he knows he’s just sent you into a veritable tailspin--you doubt you’re getting anything more useful than that out of him.  

“That would be appreciated,” you scold.  He can’t just assault you without warning all the time, after all.  You still haven’t stopped blushing.

“Ehy, where should I put this shit?” Eric drawls, rolling his eyes.  He holds up an armload of silver tinsel.  There is a tiny gloating smile still on his face, but you can’t even call him out on it.  He is always smirking about something or other.

“Over there,” you wave a hand towards the stage area.  “Hang it around the stage’s apron.  There should be some tacks in the box as well.”

Eric plods over to the box, and bends down to the get the tacks.  Today, it is very hard not to notice the lacy black stockings he wears.  She?  It might be “she” today.  You try to keep that in mind.  Whatever the pronoun, Eric’s skirt is not terribly short, but it’s short enough to give you a bit of a view when she leans over like that.  You catch just the faintest hint of the lace garters before she stands.  

You swallow and immediately force yourself to look away.  Hail Mary, full of Grace.  The room suddenly feels just a little bit smaller.  You’re far more aware of Eric’s position in proximity to yourself now, though she’s no closer than she was before.  

Behind her back, you touch your thumb to your bottom lip.  The banner in your hand droops as your grip goes slack, and you nearly drop the roll of duct tape.

You do actually drop it when she turns, and over her shoulder, says:

“And by the way?  I did it because I fucking wanted to be your first kiss, dude.”  Eric’s lips quirk sideways, as if laughing at some private joke.  “I was, wasn’t I?”

She looks down at the roll of tape as it bumps against the stage, falls over, and finally comes to a stop.  She doesn’t say anything, but shoots you a knowing look that makes the heat rise under your collar.

You nod, dumbly, and you should be angry.  You know you should.  So very much like Eric, she’s gone and stolen something that should not rightly belong to her.  And she’s laughing at you for being flustered.

But, well.  You suppose it’s too late to get it back now.  There’s nothing to be done.  Besides, it’s not such a big deal.  

It’s just a kiss. Only a kiss.  Only a pair of stockings, and a teasing little a grin.  

Oh hell, you’re doomed.  

 


	2. Chapter 2

Perhaps, if Eric had pursued you or tried anything after that one little kiss, the issue would be resolved.  You like to tell yourself that anyway.  You like to think if Eric had chased after you, and made his intentions clear, you’d have the good sense to put him off it and then ignore him.  Because you are a smart boy, and your proudest quality is that you  are honest with yourself, so you can’t deny the bare-faced truth.  Eric is more than bad news.  

But the problem is, he doesn’t pursue.  To him, what happened in the school gym seems immaterial.  He doesn’t act any differently at all.  It leaves you at odds and ends.  Did Eric kiss you because he liked you?  Did he do it merely to see how you would react?  And why now, did he seem so damned indifferent?  It’s maddening!  You have known Eric for years.  You know he likes to wage psychological warfare.

But he’s not subtle enough to do it like this.  He’s not subtle enough to give you a hugely uninterpretable gesture, and then leave you with confusion, to waste away in your lack of answers.  You don’t mean to underestimate him, but it seems beyond the realm of possibilities.  Eric is a mastermind...but he likes a show.  He doesn’t operate behind the curtains.  He demands centerstage at all times.

You wish you could stop noticing him.  You are aware of him even when you’re not looking at him.  You’re aware at all times how close he is to you.  And you are faced with the interminable agony of what you’ve not-so-affectionately begun referring to in the privacy of your own mind as The-Eric-Paradox.

When he is no where in sight, all you do is look for him.  When he’s close by, he’s too close, always, and you need him to notice you.  You feel pathetic and clingy all the time, and yet in a strange way, it feels good as well.  It’s as exciting as it is strenuous and humiliating to feel the entirety of your being strain towards him whenever he is nearby.

You don’t even know why you feel this way.  But the longer he acts as if nothing is different, the more sure you are that everything has changed.

It gets so bad that Kyle starts looking at you oddly.  You take the bus with them these days.  Eric sits in the aisle seat next to Kyle.  You sit on the aisle seat next to Stan.  This position has always been advantageous to you, because it allows you to access any social conversation of which you feel like being a part by virtue of sitting in the middle.  It puts you next to Stan--whom you consider your best friend.  And...it also puts you next to Eric, which was alright with you before.  Eric’s sort of funny when he is not being an utter pain.

But it’s both more and less than alright now.

You feel like there is an invisible string that connects your awareness to Eric.  You’re not sure if he means to give it a slight tug and pull your attention by doing nothing particularly interesting, or if he is even aware that you’re watching him all the time now.  But either way, more often than you like to admit, you can’t resist the jerking on your line.  You watch him.  You want him to watch you back, just so you feel less stupid about your inability to be indifferent.  It’s your pride that makes this so.  It would make you feel better if you were at least mutually unable to ignore each other.

Eric, however, sits there telling some horrible joke about Mexicans river rafting, and you’re honestly not even sure he knows you’re watching.  He must.  How could he not?  He had to have meant to do this, when he kissed you.  He meant to fuck with you.  Why else would he do it, and then ignore you?

You are very frustrated.  You sit there staring at Eric and trying to figure out what’s going on in his head.  You watch his facial expressions, as if this might give you a clue about how to read his mind.  And  you are so intent on this, that you don’t notice the way Kyle is looking at _you_.  

It only comes to your attention because of this exchange:

“You’re quiet today, Gary,” Stan notices.  But before you can say that you’re fine, just tired, Kyle interrupts.

“What did Eric do to you?” he asks.  His accusatory voice has that manic, almost delighted note to it.  Kyle’s need to prove to the world that Eric is up to no good is something you understand much better now.  The thought disturbs you.

“Nothing!” you say anyway, because you’re not sure he did.  Maybe you did this to yourself, by over-thinking something fairly simple.  Maybe--

You catch a glimpse of Eric’s face then.  And though his is hard to read sometimes, you can’t miss the tiny, triumphal gleam in his dark eyes when he looks at you--expression, in every other way, one of perfect bemusement.

“Hmm. Got an accusation there, Harrison?” he asks, and you’re not sure if it’s a challenge or a genuine question.

Either way you don’t have an answer.  You lower your eyes, mutter, “Knock it off, guys,” and send a quick prayer to God for patience and fortitude and clarity.

Because if Eric means to fuck with you, you can’t really deny at this point that it’s working.  The bus aisle suddenly feels smaller, and you tuck your legs a little closer to yourself and try to resist the tugging, at least for the rest of the ride. 

* * *

 You should have given Eric a lot more credit than you do.  This is because though since the bus that morning you’re at least somewhat sure she is toying with you in some way, you can’t cut the little chord of awareness.  You can’t stop wondering and looking, even though you’re consciously aware that you are doing it, and she wants you to do it.  

Perhaps it is because you still don’t know why.  You have all the same questions you had before, only now they are more paranoid, because you are sure this is not all in your head.  There’s a reason to be concerned--a mysterious motive.  You just don’t know what it is!  Does she want you?  Is she just trying to get inside your head? Do people really do things just to get a reaction, no matter how much distress it causes the other party?  Eric is your friend, or so you thought.  You don’t like to believe a friend would do something like that, for no discernible reason at all.  Even Eric Cartman had some moral compunction, didn’t she?  

She’d been doing so well, too.  She’s been up to so much less trouble, since the body changes and pronoun shifts.  You really did think she had turned some kind of corner.  Maybe Eric would always, be...well, Eric--but at least some of the bad behavior seemed to have died down.  And you like to believe the best about people.  You like to believe in redemption.  It’s the God-fearing church goer in you.  You don’t want to believe anyone is beyond seeing the light, damned forever.

So you corner her on the way to study hall.  You are not one to pussyfoot around something that bothers you, and you are going to get peace of mind, one way or another.  No more games.  No more feeling like there is less oxygen to breath and less space to move in when she’s in the same room--and too much space and air between you when she is not.  You won’t stand for this anymore.  You need things to be straight-forward again.

“Can I talk to you?” You say, standing in her way outside the lockers.

She doesn’t really look surprised to see you.  She just adjusts the strap of her big, metallic, faux-leather purse over her shoulder, and shrugs.  “I didn’t do it,” she tells you, immediately.  “I was framed.  I’m fucking innocent.  This is bullshit.  I have a great lawyer.  You’ll never prove shit.  You’re just discriminating against me, because I’m--”

You hold up your hands with a little sigh.  “No, seriously, I just want to talk.  I’m not accusing you of anything.”

She blinks.  “Oh. Heh. Ok.  Just covering my bases.  What do you want, dude?”

You roll your eyes.  “In private, if you don’t mind.”

She follows you to the small alcove at the top of the fire escape stairs.  It’s not completely private, but you don’t want it to be.  You don’t think you could handle being totally alone with her.  Even now, in semi-public, it feels excessively claustrophobic in the space you share with her.

This is a reaction you seem to be having alone.  She doesn’t appear particularly moved by the turn of events, if the sound of her acrylic tips against her iPhone is any indication.

“Sooo, what did you want to talk about?” Eric asks, shifting her weight to one booted foot, hip popped out at an angle.  Finally she looks up at you, and though you know it’s common courtesy to make eye-contact when addressed, it was easier when it seemed she was ignoring you.

“Why did you kiss me?”  You ask, for the second time.  “Really, why?  Why did you want to be my first kiss?  Were you flirting with me?  Was it just because?”  You are aware your voice sounds a little high and pitchy.  You don’t mean to sound worked up, but you are, a bit.  Quickly, you look down at your hands, and take a little shuffling step backwards, away from her.  Because the moment she hears your question, she gets this look on her face that makes you think you ought not to stand too close, (though it feels like you can’t help being too close to her here).

“...Are you really still on this?  Does that station in your head play any other fucking song?  Christ,” she asks.  Despite the look on her face when you admitted to your little fixation on the question...she sounds very bored when she speaks.  She examines her banana-yellow nails a moment, and sighs as if you are wearing on her patience.  Her patience.  It makes your temper boil a little.  

“Yes, I’m still ‘on this,’” you hiss.  “I want to know what you meant by it!  That was my first kiss, Eric.  You may be used to casual encounters, but I--”

“Goddamn, dude.  Do you want it to mean something?” she interrupts you.     

“You misunderstand! I--”

“Poor Gary.  Wanna know what I think?” she leans a little on her toes, very close.  You swallow and back away as much as possible--which isn’t much.  You hit the wall in less than half a step.

“...What?” you ask, a little hoarsely.  She is just entirely too close now, and the thought makes you chest feel restricted.  You make an effort to suck in air past the blockage.  

“I think you really ought to figure out why this bothers you so much.”  She practically sing-songs this.  

You turn red down to your toes, cross your arms, and draw yourself up defensively.  “That’s-that’s not--don’t turn this on me!  I-I-”

“You get back to me on that,” she pats you sympathetically on the arms before brushing past you.  Today, she wears an ankle-length, brightly colored skirt, so it’s quite dramatic when she sweeps off down the hall, singing to herself.  “I know you want it, bang bang all over you, I’ll let you have it…”

The bell rings, and you’re going to be late to class.  And though she didn’t really give you any direct answers, you’re an Honors student, and you’re not an idiot.

At this point, it’s fairly obvious that Eric is trying to seduce you.  

The problem is, you’ve been staring at her for weeks now.  

So it’s not exactly fair to say it’s not working.

It seems you did underestimate Eric Cartman.  But you’re all caught up now.  You can recover from your initial mistake and not have to pay through the nose for it, because you know what’s happening now.  You can consciously resist, the way you always resist temptation.   

* * *

 The problem with resisting temptation is the power of negative suggestion: the more you tell yourself not to look, not to notice, not to care...the harder it is not to.

Half of your faith-life is denial.  You have been trained all your life to actively serve others, and actively deny yourself.  Indulgence of most kinds is a terrific sin.  Every one of your worst confessions so far has played to this theme: you got so angry at your mother that you called her a terrible name and succumbed to rage.  You let yourself become overpowered by lust and allowed yourself a guilty night under the sheets with your hand.  You sunk into the depths of your fear and told a lie to your father.  

After all that denial, you’d think that it would not be a problem to turn off one more source of temptation.  But the problem with denial is that it is an uphill slope.  The closer you get to virtue, the harder gravity pulls.

A lifetime of denial has put you at a disadvantage here, for more than one reason.  Firstly because your rigid practice has left you woefully inexperienced in lots of ways that count in your situation.  You don’t know how to separate physical from emotional.  You’ve never so much as held anyone’s hand.  So, anything of that nature feels overwhelming.  It feels important.  It’s impossible to make the delineation, decide it is emotionally not a big deal, because to you, it is.

Secondly, because there’s only so much energy you have for resistance.  You resist judgement passed on others, you resist sleeping in late and wasting daylight hours, you resist sitting lazily around on the couch, being rude even to the most ignorant adults, zoning out thoroughly anticipatable sermons in church.  You resist lusty thoughts, lusty desires, and lusty preoccupations.  But the added pressure of resisting Eric’s tugging feels like just one more thing to turn off inside of you, and sometimes you don’t feel like you have enough fingers to man this control panel.

If only he’d make this easy for you.  If only he’d give you something to actively refuse.  You scream “no” so many times in your head; maybe if you just got to say it outloud once, you wouldn’t need to repeat it anymore.  But Eric never gives you that chance.  He keeps on being your friend.  He keeps on outscoring Kyle on exams and then gloating about it, but otherwise keeping their rivalry on a low-burner.  She keeps wearing modest-length skirts, slowly but surely developing a fashion sense that is beyond glitter, animal prints, and neon colors.  

She even asks your advice sometimes, and your opinions (“Dude, is it too matchy-matchy to wear shoes the same color as my purse?”  “Is my fucking lipstick shade right for my skin tone, do you think?”  “Bro, are these vertical stripes too ‘sailor’ or do they look awesome?  Awesome, right?”).  You don’t know much about fashion...but she looks nice.  She always looks nice.  Feminine suits Eric, or at least the comfort and happiness she radiates with her gender performance suit her.  In your opinion, confidence and peace look best on anyone; it’s your favorite look.

Perhaps Eric knows you thrive in a scenario where you can make direct argumentation.  You like to take charge, make executive decisions, and decide on your own terms what you will deal with.  That is who you damn well are.  Thus Eric retreats to rhetoric that cannot be challenged like that.  You can’t argue with his methods without looking like a stark raving fool.

For example, when she walks a step or two closer to you in the halls--not enough to breach your personal space, but close enough that you can smell the sugar-cookies-and-vaguely-floral scent that often means it’s a female-pronoun kind of day...you can’t exactly protest and call it an invasion.  You could write it off as behavior intended to seduce you, but the fact is, she walks just close to Stan at her other side--even links an arm through his as the three of you traverse the hallways.  

Besides, it’s you, not her, that gets the little jealous twist in your stomach over the fact that she touches Stan, not you.  Absurdly, you wonder if she’s playing the same game with all of you.  If so, you wonder how you stack up.  You hope you’re ahead.  You hate yourself for hoping such a ridiculous thing; this is not a competition you want to win, if it’s even a competition at all.

It shouldn’t be.  You’ve no reason to be jealous, and even if you did--it’s not Godly to fixate on feelings of envy and wrath.  Jealousy blends the two of them into a poison that kills relationships; you know not to sip from that, and to purge it when it slips into your diet of good sense.

Really, these thoughts, of course, are not something you accept readily at all.  You push them down.  You distract yourself through active service.  But the more they come to the door and you send them away, the more reinforcements they bring the next time they come ringing your bell.  It is an endless barrage, and you can barricade yourself in all you like, but your fixation is coming in through the windows and air vents.  You know it more the longer you try to steel yourself; you are working against the tide.

It’s just so damned insidious.  You admire Eric’s thousands of microaggressions even as they exasperate you.  One day, he comes to school with just a big sweatshirt on a day that it begins snowing in the middle of the afternoon.  

“Goddamn, dude.  It’s cold as balls,” he complains, and then he gets that look on his face.  “‘Ehy, hipster.  You’ve got your jacket and shit.  Gimme your scarf.”

He’s shivering, a little, and you grew up on a steady diet of ready charity.  So easily, you unwind your brightly-colored, thick, over-sized  scarf and give it to him without thinking about it.  You hand it over, smile, and then watch as he winds it around his neck and feel good about yourself.  Doing good for others brings out the best in you.

When you get it back, folded at the bottom of your locker that he no doubt picked open, you sling it around your shoulders and grab your textbook.  It is not until you take a good, deep, long satisfied breath at the end of another long day that you realize what he’s done.  The scarf smells like him.  It is his cologne, a little bit of the softer perfume he wears on girl-days, baked goods and the elusive “other” smell underneath it all that is replicated no where else.  It sat against his neck all day absorbing his scent, and now you are heavily--completely aware of that fact as it lays snug and familiar around yours.

You could take it off, but it really is cold.  So you wear it home, and God.  Warmth just isn’t a problem anymore all the way there.

You can’t help it.  You bury your nose in the end and take one more deep breath before hanging it up when you get home, covertly as if someone might see you and wonder just what you’re doing.  You never want to explain that to anyone.  


	3. Chapter 3

In retrospect, you realize that the moment you could have stopped everything from happening comes during your most boring class.  

Eric sits next to you during World Civ, and passes you funny notes.  He’s always done this--even before the little kiss that changed everything.  Generally they are poorly drawn renderings of stick figures doing and saying obscene things, and you often roll your eyes at them.  But it’s a pretty boring class.  So you don’t really mind the distraction.

Today, he succeeds in making you laugh with one of his stupid jokes (“Why didn’t the lifeguard save the hippie?  Because he was too far out.” And a little guy in John Lennon glasses with long hair waves his stick arms around as he tries to swim.  He shouts: “Why did I bother saving the fucking whales?  What good are they to me now?!”).  You cover your mouth with your hand and shake your head.  It’s a bit terrible, but you can’t really help yourself.

You look at him sideways with an expression that is half-scolding and half-amused, but the amused side wins out when he grins back at you, shameless.  And when he does it, there it is again: that genuine, happy smile that first caught your attention all those weeks back.  ...It feels like a lifetime ago now.  But your reaction is the same.  You notice.

You pass him the note back with your additions.  You’ve drawn a boat passing by, ready to throw the man a floatation ring, because you feel bad for laughing when someone is in mortal peril.  You can’t justify someone suffering for a punchline.  You want things to end up alright for everyone.

Eric snorts when he opens it.  He doesn’t pass you anything back for a long time.  So long, in fact, that you begin to doodle and zone out on your own, and when he does reply, it startles you so badly you nearly jump out of your seat.

“Do you wanna hang out tomorrow?” is all it says, but there’s a picture of a little frog in the corner with a gun in his hand and an arrow pointing to him that says “The Power Of Clyde Compels You.”

You think the answer should be “no.”   It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for, the moment to ensure he leaves you alone, the first chance you’ve gotten for direct refusal to Eric’s ploy for your attention.

But it comes in the form of a question at the bottom of a piece of lined paper you’ve been passing back and forth for days.  And it’s not unclear, not manipulative in any obvious way--just a question.  Innocuous.  Asked the same way he might ask Butters or Kyle or Stan, and you have the power to refuse, but you can’t quite find the grounds.  Eric is still your friend, and he hasn’t done anything, not really, and your desire to give people the benefit of the doubt doesn’t let you dismiss this as part of some scheme.  Because that’s not what it feels like.  

It’s just a doodle, just a question, just a guy who thinks you’re pretty cool even though you ruined his punchline, wanting to hang out after school.

“Yeah,” you write back, and you don’t even worry about it until you’re home alone again, in bed and wondering if he’ll try to kiss you again.

You’ll stop him, if he does.  But you kind of want him to, just so you feel justified in your paranoia again. 

* * *

Hanging out with Eric is normal, uneventful.  You, he and Scott play videogames for the first half of the night (which you are patently terrible at, having no game system for practicing at home).  His mom makes one of the best meals you have ever had.  You only get through about half of Return Of the Living Dead, and Eric laughs through most of it.   Not that you blame him, much.  There is quite literally a character named “Trash,” and she apparently feels the need to dance around a graveyard half-naked for no apparent reason.

But to your surprise, after that, Eric shuts it off and informs you he has a “tournament” this weekend, and he has to study.  

“...Study?” you echo, dumbly.  You’ve never so much as heard the word exit Eric’s mouth--at least without with a mocking connotation.

“Yeah.  It’s hella weak,” he complains, but he still switches on his fancy gaming computer and sits down heavily.  “But Wendy and I are running this fucking sweet Gender Kritik case on Neg we wrote together, and I need to add some shit I found today.”

You don’t really know what he’s talking about.  Scratch that; you don’t even have the beginnings of comprehension as to what he’s on about.  But the fact that he’s working with Wendy helps you you discern that he’s not running some kind of advanced Ponzi scheme or plot to inject Kyle with a disease or way to use social media to destroy the Jews again.  So there’s that at least.

What he’s doing, you discover after only minimal pressing, is research...for debate.  He and Wendy are debate partners.  It seems that his gender questions lead him to the literature, and the literature lead him to Wendy...and Wendy (clever girl) combined Eric’s interest and his interest in winning arguments to shape him up into a force with which to be reckoned.  You are surprised...and utterly unsurprised.  This suits him...just like the sun dresses do.

“You should come see me sometime,” he says before you leave.  “Heh. We kick ass.”

“Sure,” you say, encouragingly.  It makes you quite happy to see him using his particular brand of genius to antagonize people in formal academic instead of attempting to instigate genocide or star on reality TV.  

“Cool, man.  That’ll be sweet.  I’m awesome at this shit.” Eric brags.  And you have to catch yourself...because you were very close to...hoping he wanted to impress you.  You very nearly hoped, for a just a second, that maybe...you had something to do with inspiring this change.

You brush it off quickly enough. It’s an awful arrogance to assume you served as inspiration for the positive changes in Eric’s life.  

But though you don’t entertain the thought long, it leaves an imprint on your mind like the bright spot left behind by a flash bulb.  You blink and blink, but you can’t get rid of it.

You wonder for the thousandth time if Eric wanted you to think so, if it’s true, or if it’s all in your head again.  And that’s really the rule of this game, isn’t it?  You’re never sure just what Eric’s playing at, if he’s playing at all--and if he is, what the objective is.  If you’re the objective, if you’re the central motivation or just a little side character in Eric’s peripherals, and it’s not your fault because everyone must feel this way around him.

You don’t know.  You never know.  You thought you had this figured out, but the longer you look the less clear it all becomes.  

And you can’t help but look anymore.  There’s a breathlessness you feel all the time around him now, like two great hands are pressed on either side of your ribcage and squeezing and squeezing.  The crushing pressure you experience is not unlike being buried alive slowly, and every time you try to pull yourself out you forget which way is up and just end up digging yourself deeper.

All you know is that you’re going with Eric to his tournament this weekend, and you’re going to miss church for the first time in your life to do it.  You tell yourself it’s because you want to encourage him to keep on this path of good behavior and show your support.

But it might or might not have to do with wanting to see him in a pencil skirt, too.

* * *

 At lunch a few weeks later, Eric slips his hand into yours under the table.  He sits so close to you, practically shoulder to shoulder, and you hadn’t thought anything of it, because your table’s pretty crowded these days.  But there is no way you could miss it when he zips his fingers together with yours, quick and sly-like.

You’re a touchy person.  You and your family don’t have any concept of personal space.  You’re always hugging and in each others’ business, flopped over each other on the couch during Family Home Evening, sprawled in a heap playing a board game or listening to your brother perform Hamlet.

But this feels different from all that.  It feels different from the way you put a hand on Stan’s elbow to talk, or knock your sneakers against Kyle’s during English class.  This is so much more personal, and you really should pull away, but you simply don’t.  His hand is big and warm, and your heart is beating so fast.

You are very familiar by this point with Eric’s remarkable indifference to the internal chaos he causes you.  So when you sneak a look at him, it doesn’t surprise you that he gives no visible sign that anything is strange at all.  He eats french fries and lectures Butters about the evils of low-fat mayonnaise (“It’s NOT goddamn mayonnaise!”), and seems blissfully unaware of the fact that your hand is slick with sweat inside his.

He lets go about halfway through.  If it weren’t for the fact that every single nerve in your body is awake and attuned to him, and Eric’s history of this kind of routine...you might wonder if it had happened at all.  But you know better to question your sanity by now.  He did it, and he knows he did it.  

And you let him.  For the first time, you think maybe that means something.  You look at him now chatting Wendy about Aff strategies (whatever that entails; you still can’t keep up with their top-speed chatter).  He never used to get along with Wendy, and now she is perfectly willing to beat the snot out of anyone who makes him bad for wearing a push-up bra.  

You wonder...if Wendy can trust him: Wendy, who has every reason to hate him, who he actively antagonized for years, who once made him quite literally eat his underwear...if you can trust him, too.

Not completely, of course.  You don’t think you will ever be able to let your guard down around someone who actively proved again and again he is fully willing and capable of destroying people’s lives and livelihoods just to amuse himself.

But God is capable of miracles.  And people change when they want to sometimes.  You never asked him to undergo the positive developments he has.  He did it on his own.

You guess you sort of have to give credit where it’s due.  Also, you really really want him to hold your hand again.


End file.
